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I'm expecting HOM too. But I'm often surprised how bad players turn out to be that I thought were awesome, and vice versa. OK not "bad" exactly, but not HOM material. For example Lou Brock "seemed" better than Jake Beckley but it turned out not to be so.

Because Rolen added so little to his stats after his first nine full seasons, he probably won’t sniff Cooperstown. It doesn’t help that he wasn’t properly rated when he was at his best.

I fear he's destined to become this generation's Santo.* Legitimately great glove at third, excellent bat. He should be an easy Hall of Fame choice, but he's probably gotta hope for a future functioning Vet's committee to have a chance.

Scott's been on a major slope down since about August of '10. Shoulder/back issues were just too much.

The one thing that impressed me during the 1-1.5 seasons I got to see a healthy Rolen, was how good of a baserunner he was for his size. Always seemed to get good reads on balls and take the extra base. You could just tell he was an amazing athlete.

Rolen is so high on the relevant third-baseman lists that I thought I'd do a comps list that includes both 3B and all outfielders, centered on him in terms of PAs and OPS+, with some speed-related totals, and ranked by WAR Fielding Runs:

It gives one a sense of what kind of outfielder has a batting career similar to these outstanding 3B. My gosh, there doesn't seem to be a HOFer in the bunch, though Boyer & Hack IIRC are in the Hall of Merit, and there might be others I've forgotten. No wait, Heinie Manush is in the Hall of Fame, who knows why.

The 3B on that list tend to be elite players, though it confirms AROM's point that they're also not the inner circle at 3B, not the Bakers and Boggses and Bretts of the position.

Without the emergence of Frazier, the Reds may have tried to bring him back on a one year deal. But I don't think they'll make an offer, even as a backup.

I'm not opposed to the Reds making an offer for a 3b, even with Frazier. It's likely Ludwick will decline the $5M mutual option and want at least a 2 year deal. Bringing in a full time 3b and letting Heisey/Frazier play in LF with Frazier getting 500 PA being the super-sub at LF/3b/1b is an option.

I'm hard pressed to determine whether Schmidt or Rolen was the better fielder, having seen all of Schmidt's career and much of Rolen's (didn't see much when I lived in KC when Rolen started). I know Beltre is really good but haven't see that much of him -- is he really better than Rolen? Wow.

I've seen a lot of Schmidt and Beltre, much less of Rolen. Schmidt and Beltre are hard for me to compare, because I saw Schmidt play almost exclusively on artificial turf, which meant a very different style. Beltre reminds me a bit of a great hockey goalie; he's a really supple guy, lightning-quick. Schmidt was fast straight ahead as well as quick (Beltre's not fast), and so he was outstanding at charging the ball, and Schmidt had a better arm than Beltre. I don't know where Rolen fits in, so my remarks are somewhat oblique, not to say pointless :)

The answer was never revealed, but my best guess was Rasmus, Ozzie and Rolen, and I don't know for the fourth. Did TLR not get along with Canseco or are you saying that just because of his later shenanigans and roid accusations?

Just saw an old clip of ABC's Battle of the Superstars (or whatever that was called). It was the 100-yard dash final (won by Lynn Swann, with gargantuan shotputter Brian Oldfield coming close for second) and Dave Kingman was the lone baseball representative to make the race. The commentators mentioned that he'd defeated Schmidt to make the final.

Bringing in a full time 3b and letting Heisey/Frazier play in LF with Frazier getting 500 PA being the super-sub at LF/3b/1b is an option.

If the price is right Kevin Youkilis would be a great fit. He's from Cincinnati, he's a talented hitter and as a righty fits nicely between Votto and Bruce (or around them in some capacity) and he's probably going to be banged up enough that Frazier would get ample at bats. I love Youk so I'm biased, I think he's a good fit everywhere.

You might want to take a look at the 3B options before you embark on that plan. We've been obsessing in Philly all year no one has a very good solution.

Yeah I have not looked at the options. The only one I know is a FA off the top of my head is Youk. Youk is a hometown guy and all, but I'm pretty sure the Reds can get a better option in LF and keep Frazier at 3b.

hokie, Youk's about it. Big risk there, I think, as the bidding might be energetic and he gets a bigger, longer contract that we expect. For a team that has Frazier in the wings, it's a better risk than some team like Philly who has Kevin Frandsen, Freddie Galvis or excretable MiniMart as backups.

Did Jordan and TLR not get along? I'm asking because Jordan seemed well thought of when he played for the Cardinals. I've seen him on several Cardinals telecasts over the years and the impression you get is that Jordan enjoyed playing in St. Louis.

hokie, Youk's about it. Big risk there, I think, as the bidding might be energetic and he gets a bigger, longer contract that we expect. For a team that has Frazier in the wings, it's a better risk than some team like Philly who has Kevin Frandsen, Freddie Galvis or excretable MiniMart as backups.

Yeah. The Reds don't necessarily need a 3b. I was just trying to think outside the box of trying to upgrade the offense. I'm confident Frazier can handle the full time job and produce at the plate and in the field nicely.

As much of a risk as Youk is, I consider giving Ludwick 2+ years just as equal of a risk. Plus Youk at 3b would presumably require Frazier playing LF, which is not his "natural" position.

Setting aside whether he makes it or not, doesn't Rolen at least deserve to make the HoF? He's 8th all-time among 3B in WAR, and 5th in WAR/PA--if a guy is this clearly among the top 10 at his position, don't you punch his ticket?

One thing to dig about Rolen (we had a trivia question on this, this summer) is the *5 standing alone in his B-Ref position column. Never played an inning anywhere else, and despite interleague and some time in the AL, never even DH'd. Including his ample postseason play, too.

I hope Beltran gets some consideration, but the missed time at 23, 32 and 33 combined with being one of those players who's really good at a LOT of things rather than really great at one or two may cost him.

If this is the end, Rolen will still eventually get into the Hall, but he'll probably be in the same boat as Edmonds for a long time. Too bad there won't be any sportswriters crowing about how much teams feared Rolen's defense.

i say rolen, lankford, drew and rasmus.

i believe ozzie won't talk to him.

Drew might be the most boring, dull human being who ever pulled up a stirrup. What could Drew have possibly done to merit Don Tony's dreaded silent treatment? And Lankford came back for that final hurrah with the Cards. I don't think he and Tony left things on bad terms.

edit:

Or Ray Lankford, who IIRC TLR denigrated after he was gone, saying something about how Lankford whiffed all the time.

The whiff, whiff, whiff comment was WRT Gant. He made some general comment about striking out when they traded Lankford for Woody Williams (that turned out pretty well), but then Tony brought him back as a bench player a couple of years later.

He wasn't entirely right in the 2006 playoffs, but he did just enough to help the Cardinals win the World Series. For that, he'll have my eternal thanks.

I still believe he should have been the 2006 WS MVP. .421/.476/.737 (1.213 OPS), key home run off of Verlander in game one, great baserunning (forcing an Inge error later that game) etc. When you add in the injury back story (he looked like toast in the NLDS) and the fight with TLR, it makes it all the more relevant.

David Eckstein won the MVP with a .364/.391/.500 (.891 OPS), and a lot of his performance was luck (one of his "doubles" was a clearly misplayed fly ball to CF, etc).

Anyway, I don't remember the details, but Kerry Robinson figured fairly negatively in Bissinger's book about TLR. He might be one of the four.

The whiff, whiff, whiff comment was WRT Gant. He made some general comment about striking out when they traded Lankford for Woody Williams (that turned out pretty well), but then Tony brought him back as a bench player a couple of years later.

Ozzie Smith did not deal well with being benched for Royce Clayton, and there has been bad blood between him and TLR ever since. My other guesses would be Colby Rasmus and Rick Ankiel. I don't know anything about TLR's relationship with his various players on the As.

Brian Jordan was wildly overrated by STL fans because he had obvious tools. He could run and throw and had power. That he took few walks and had other weaknesses in his game were things that are not visible to the average fan. Willie McGee is the same. STL fans only remember the .300 batting averages and the occasional great postseason play. That he didn't walk, struck out a lot, was a lousy base stealer for someone with his speed, had little power and an ineffective arm were things that are not so visible. - Brock Hanke

Brock: Ankiel was one of Tony's most beloved and sheltered players. The P-D is full of old stories in which Tony praises Ankiel endlessly for his courage, etc. And BJ was one of the greatest defensive players I've ever seen when he was with the Cards. He was toolsy, yes, but he was wonderful all-around, regularly registering 5 WAR with his 98 season coming in at 6.8 by BBR WAR.

Always enjoy your longer posts about the halcyon days of the club, btw.

...afterwards the host tweeted that TLR told him there were four players that played for him that he would never speak to again.

That's a good one.

I think he tried to reach out to Ozzie, so it may not be him.
Lankford was certainly on the list, but think they made up.
Rolen I think the same - they made peace.
Gant - Don't think they talk
Canseco - Probably on the list.
Probably a White Sox player in there somewhere - he always had a least one player per team he didn't talk to.
Rasmus - Definitely.

Rolen and Beltran seem like excellent "HOF" comps to me. Good(great) runners, good(great) defense, good not great hitters for their position, injury histories (Rolen more than Beltran) and now bouncing around a bit. Rolen will be an interesting case to see whether the voters are starting to shift to a more "sabermetric" view of these matters. He does have the advantage of 8 GG to go with the fab fancy defensive numbers (whereas Beltre doesn't) so no voter is going to completely ignore Rolen's defense.

TLR probably won't talk to Ozzie, he tried to patch things up, left him an open invitation to spring training as a coach every year, and Ozzie went on the offensive and said something about TLR, and TLR then revoked the invitation.

I wouldn't be surprised if Canseco is on the list, TLR is really ticked off about Canseco. Not the ratting out part, but the 'glee' in which Canseco seems to enjoy doing the ratting.

TLR has tried to make amends with Rolen and used to get along really well with him, I don't think that riff is permanent. As mentioned TLR loves Ankiel, no way is he on the list. Someone mentioned Baker, and the evidence that TLR is playing psychopathic games with his managerial style, is that him and Baker are actually pretty good friends. As recently as last season they were seen eating dinner together, so he's not on that list. I don't think Drew is on that list either, Drew doesn't have the personality to engineer that much emotion. Gant accused TLR of racism, so that is a good point in his being on the list. Jordan admitted to a riff with TLR, while defending TLR from Gant's comment, I think Jordan is the type of guy that can realize that it's a competitive environment, away from the field, and give your emotions time to heal, and things are different. Maybe it's Tino, Tino's little baby ass attitude when he left put a good size riff(I guess he couldn't handle the St Louis press) Kerry Robinson figured in the Bissinger book, but that was because he thought he should be starting, I think once he realized it wasn't TLR that was keeping him from an everyday job, that he was able to put it behind him.

I would put Rasmus as the third. I wouldn't be surprised if the fourth is someone we don't know anything about. Heck it might be Steve Kline, I'm not sure TLR ever really forgave him for the flicking off thing.

I hope Rolen doesn't retire, I think that if he finds a good place to play 3-5 days a week, that he can have a valuable season. His body cannot handle the rigors of playing everyday, but when he gets rest, he seems to be almost reborn.

I also saw all or most of Schmidt's and Rolen's time in Philadelphia. I'm confident that Rolen had the stronger arm. Probably a litle more range to his left, too... which makes sense since he's 6'4 and quick. Both were great at coming in on bunts and choppers, and at going to their right.